The world of business strategy is in transition. What used to work doesn't anymore -- not necessarily.
This course prepares you to think strategically in an age when companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have become more valuable (in market cap terms) than companies like Exxon. Today, business value and competitive advantage arise more often from consumer perceptions of what is "cool" than from physical assets or economies of scale.
In this course -- the first of a three-course specialization tailored specifically for the age of creativity and innovation -- you will gear up for the challenges of strategy formulation and implementation in a 21st century business.
After taking the course, you'll be able to:
- Explain why "doing" strategy is considered "the high point of managerial activity" (Mintzberg);
- Recognize and avoid the old, tired ideas about strategy that are still out there, so you can adopt fresher, better ideas;
- Point out how doing strategy has changed because of advancing technology and globalization;
- Prepare for the Capstone Project for the Strategic Management and Innovation Specialization

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The Evolution of Strategy...Past Progress, Past Mistakes

Historically, strategy consulting and strategic planning have been big business. Companies have spent a lot over the years on sophisticated, high-brow "strategic" consulting. For a long time, consultants were the strategy "high-priests" of business. Until it all fell apart. Many past approaches have now fallen into disfavor, having risen spectacularly and failed even more spectacularly. Indeed, the history of business strategy making could be called a "March of Folly" (historian Barbara Tuchman uses this expression to describe a tendency in human history to repeat the same mistakes, again and again). This module explores what the past can teach us, how we might avoid repeating past mistakes.